Hello! hifi room positioning & mains advice sought...

Tom YGM!

Alex in that case what I'll do is ask him for 10mm "twin & earth" cabling. I don't think I have enough space on the consumer unit for 3 seperate spurs, so I guess I'll just get him to do a single spur - ending in a double unswitched socket? (or single? will it make any discernible difference?)


Thanks for all the help - I only want to be doing this once so I got to get it right!

cheers

 

Simon, I'd do as you say and run to a double unswitched socket. If you can squeeze in 2 spurs I'd do that and put the power amp or integrated into a single unswitched and the rest of the kit into the double - what is your kit BTW?

I know its boring but 10mm takes a while to burn in so I'd stick a 2 bar heater on it for a couple of days before I plugged in the hi-fi. Good luck, and don't let the sparks talk you out of using 10mm even if he charges a bit more (which he will).

With 10mm you can use bigger fuses in the consumer unit - worth doing.

 

Kit's in sig below. I'll basically need 3 sockets in all, so a single & a double with 2 spurs would be best then. If there is only space for 1 spur, I'll ask for a 3-way unswitched socket plate.

Reading around I see the term SWA shielding. Should I ask for this?

 

SWA = Steel Wire Armoured

It may offer an amount of interference shielding. But is used in areas where the cable needs more physical protection.
Costs more, youll need metal back box to terminate into and also glands for each end. So it will add more cost than just a cable change.

 

Just spoke to sparky - 10mm cable is gonna cost another 80 quid !! He was going to use 2.5mm. So I've opted for a compromise - 6mm, which is only 30 quid more. I doubt I'll notice the difference in cable than I will the difference in my bank account..!

Also unfortunately there's only 1 free way on the consumer unit, so 1 run up to a 3-socket faceplate will have to do.

Lol he couldn't understand why I wanted such big wire for only 100W for the amplifier... he suggested maybe I should spend the money on upgrading speaker wire instead :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

That's what I've used. My sparky mate had some left over fom a job he did so we used that. We figured it might offer some shielding so it was worth a go.

Not sure what the diameter is though. Is it just the diameter of the cable itself or some other measurement? Mine's about 12mm in diameter.....

 

Simon, its your money but I did notice you had an intitial budget of 300 quid. I'd strongly advise you to spend the extra 80 on 10mm (or you could buy the 10mm yourself for less than the differential being quoted by your sparks). All tests by myself and many others have shown the extra investment to be worth it. SWA is certainly not needed from the CU (although my feed into the CU is 25mm SWA). Armoured cable is a lot more expensive than 10mm T&E.

 

maddog
the measurment refers to the cross sectional area of the conductor, not the overall diameter.
hth

 

Can I just say welcome back to the hi-fi world Simon!
If I'd known they were going to be boxed up for 6 months I'd have asked to borrow your GR20s!

Cheers, Liam.

 

Alex tis true I did say 300... OK you've twisted my arm. you sound so sure of its benefit that well frankly it'd be rude for me not to oblige init! :lol: I'll phone Mr Sparky and get him to do 10mm.

Hi Liam! remember you from the HFC forum.. we had nearly identical systems except for the speakers, but now I see you've changed your transport....was it a worthwhile upgrade ? are you using balanced I/C's now?

Edit: the maximum time frame I'd planned/expected/HOPED they'd be boxed up for was 3 months..........doing the house up took just a tad longer unfortunately. but then I did go and buy a shell didnt i!

 

Hi Simon, yes the transport change was a subtle but worthwhile upgrade: everything a little clearer and more defined. Not sure how much of that is the use of the balanced XLO digi I/C! Leaves me with a marantz player that may be up for grabs soon! Keep us posted on how your mains upgrade works out!

Cheers, Liam.

 

well it's all in - 10mm spur with 3 unswitched sockets. haven't really had much time to listen since though (12 hour days at work.. and I'm at work now!! ) but from what I heard last night there is an improvement, detail was a little clearer esp. in quieter passages, and generally things seemed sharper (not as in treble, but as in more resolved). It's difficult to judge though, since the system's only been back unboxed for a week and it already sounded a lot better than it did in the last house - I can see now I suffered from more boom than I thought back then - midrange is so much clearer when the speakers are away from the walls. so smiles all round really! Just got to dampen the echoes next..

Thanks a lot chaps

 

you could always try the maddog's diffusers..........

 

what on earth is that, looks like a wooden radiator!

i'll be getting thick heavy wavy curtains made, which'll be behind the speakers, should do the same kinda trick!

 

many a guest has said something similar


curtains are of course absorbers (rather than diffusers) and thus will absorb some of the frequency band rather than simply deflecting it in a random pattern (hopefully). Depending on how you like your room to behave (and your system characteristics) this can be a good thing, or a not so good thing...

Personally, I found curtains behind the speakers robbed some of the sparkle from the music by absorbing a chunk of the higher frequencies.

Just because some hifi shops have loads of curtains doesn't mean you should

 

Simon, it will keep improving for the next 3 months as the 10mm burns in.

I've found the best room acoustic treatment balance is to have absorbtion behind the speakers (and on side reflection areas) and diffusion behind the listener.

 

I have exactly the opposite. Curtains behind me and the speaker end "live".


It's clearly an area to experiment with. You'd be surprised how acoustic treatments will influence the overall presentation (I was).